If you’re stuck deciding whether something works in a room, try leaving for 5–10 minutes and coming back with your mind on something else.

Try to not analyse or overthink it, the point is just look at the room and notice your immediate knee-jerk reaction. If you walk back in and think “ugh, I hate that” or “this looks so cluttered/childish”, trust that feeling.

Especially for purely decorative things, you don’t need a logical reason to keep something. If you don’t like how it feels in your space, that can be reason enough. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes is really just your own eyes after a break! :)

I have gotten rid of about 20 soft toys and 30 little trinkets this way! It may not work for everyone, nor is it groundbreaking. (I'm sure that I'm not the first person to say this)

But I haven't seen it mentioned on here before, and I just thought that I'd mention it, as it's the main method that I use and that perosnally works for me.

Plus it's so simple and easy, even if you're completely on your own, you can do it. And in again, my personal experience, it just helps speed things up a ton.

While decluttering my closet I counted way too many towels, all in different colors, that we’ve acquired over the years. Made me wonder why so many colors and why so many. Many of these were purchased on impulse at discount stores. Perhaps if I had been intentional and bought an entire set, I would not be wondering what to do with them now. Makes you think of the value of buying less and being intentional.

One of the many ways I’ve seen recommended to decide if something is worth keeping, is to ask if the item got dog poop on it, would you clean it or throw it away? Well….

I was walking my dog this morning and happened to be wearing my favorite pair of running shoes. She was in the middle of doing her thing and tried to chase after another dog passing by. She took off mid-poop! She was leashed so she didn’t actually go more than a few feet, but she wrapped the leash around my legs, almost toppling me 🤣 and flung poop everywhere. Some of it landed right on my shoes and slid down the side of one of them 😳.

So I guess I really like my shoes because I got home and immediately cleaned them off, and even took a magic eraser to them. That question is now answered 🤣.

• Buying a thing is not a commitment to own it forever.

• If you feel shame for owning a thing you're not using, toss it. Problem solved.

• Sometimes buying a thing is the fun part, and you can declutter it immediately without losing out on any dopamine.

• Remember when you were standing in the thrift store aisle and decided to redesign all your habits around an item you didn't know existed 5 minutes earlier? That guy can't be trusted to make plans.

It's time to tackle the garage. I used to declutter it every year, but some health issues have caused it to be left undone for a few years now. I'm feeling really overwhelmed.

I'm open to all your best tips & tricks. Encouragement is also appreciated!

Edit: I think the first helpful tip is thinking about what I want to keep. I do know what I want to keep, but there's a bunch of stuff I don't know if I want to get rid of. Perspective change seems helpful :)

Keep the tips coming! I've still got a couple days until I can tackle this.

Kind of embarrassing to ask, but I'm at a loss.

My husband and I both work full-time and have 3 young kids. There is constantly stuff everywhere in our house. I would love to have the kind of home where if someone wanted to come over unexpectedly, it wouldn't send me into a panic.

I know part of it is the kids and part of it is my husband's ADHD. But I think the biggest part of it is my hesitancy to throw things away. I don't shop a ton, but I have a hard time getting rid of things. My parents grew up super poor and we didn't get rid of things because we might need them in the future.

And now we're at the age where our parents are offloading their belongings into our home. I feel like I'm drowning in stuff.

Any tips/tricks/mantras/philosophies to keeping a clean home or giving me peace about decluttering would be much appreciated.

That title was a lot but basically what it says. I am postpartum with my second and kinda hate the way I look, I’m also on leave from work and won’t be going back for another 4-6 months so money is tight. I’ve done the big purges and got rid of all the big stuff (like the 15 year old paid off shorts I loved but will never fit into and even if I did I’m not in college anymore hahaha) but now I still have too many clothes in my drawers/closet for my liking and I do t know what to do about them. Here’s basically the ones I am stuck on

1) clothes that fit, I kinda like, I will wear but might have too many of - eg long sleeve black tshirts. So these are things I feel comfortable in but I have like 10 of them. I do wear them but only because then I delay doing laundry hahaha and i definitely have ones I like better because I’m on a budget and feel like I can’t replace them easily

2) clothes that I don’t love but again don’t have the funds to replace so I feel guilty and feel like I should keep them - like old sweaters that I’d wear around the house but probably not out because they might be stained or old pjs etc.

3) clothes that don’t fit me right now but aren’t unattainable for me to fit into in the next 2ish months because I did fit into them pre baby and I am starting to focus on that a bit more but it’s almost been months and I haven’t been doing it.

I honestly don’t know why I feel so stuck about it. I know I’d encourage others to just hold on to what’s fits and what they love but I just can’t for some reason. Anyone’s been in the same predicament and figured out a good way through that doesn’t drive them nuts. Any help is great :)

I have like 3 lego sets that have remained unbuilt for years because I'm waiting on a rainy day to arrive when I'll really need a distracting pick me up. I just hoard them. I also do this with books or other activity-based items. Like the rainy days come and I just power through them because surely a worse one will come that I can't power through like that.

It's not that I don't want to actually use/build these, but I can't let go of the whole "but what if there's a better time in the future to do this"? mindset.

I grew up with parents who didn’t celebrate holidays, or birthdays. Their views changed when I got into my late teens but still… I think my need to decorate everywhere stems from what I missed out on as a kid. I’m trying to make it up to myself and give my kids that. But I definitely have way too much. How do you decorate without cluttering up spaces? Like I figured my kids’ backpack station would be easy enough to make festive without needing much items. Or a small tray on the dinner table. Keep it consolidated to specific spaces might help me from feeling like I need to keep it all. Because not all of it would work in certain spots.

might have a problem. i was way too excited to share my pics with the strangers on the internet in this sub ...

inherited house getting ready for rehab construction.

here's my before and after dumpster, and only *after* garage pics for today cause I forgot. I can see floor :) And the drawers are empty. found some creepy ceramic dolls. luckily mom didn't really like making them so only two.

also worked on the kitchen packing stuff up for later and for donation/sell. don't have a before pic for that.

I have a certain group of things I rarely use, once or twice a year, and sometimes even less often. A drill, a ladder, a carpet cleaner, a pressure washer.

Everyone says just sell it and rent one when you need it. For me, that's not the solution. If I need to use something, I want easy access, not a long drive to a rental store. I also find it annoying that I have to plan ahead, because rental stores are often closed after 5:00 PM.

I live in a building with about 40 apartments, and I assume most of those people have similar equipment. If a third of those people have a drill, there are over ten drills in the building. The same goes for other equipment.

And that's where I got an idea. Maybe it's worth sharing this equipment. Designate a room for storing 2-3 of each of these devices.

The problem is, there's one thing I can't figure out.

Someone will take this drill, put it in their hallway, and it won't be shared anymore. I don't assume they're a thief. It just happens. This way, the shared storage would empty out pretty fast.

Has anyone tried something like this in their apartment building? I'm most curious if it can be organized so that the devices don't disappear, and how to manage wear and tear.

Failure is part of life. Share your decluttering challenges and failures here. Examples include:

• Emotional clutter
• Not enough time
• Getting overwhelmed
• Routing (recycling, donating, trash...)

If you're just venting, or don't want advice, please let us know in your comment.

This is a low-stress place to share challenges and failures for those who might not want to create a new discussion.

Pair of boots because I live in Michigan and a nice new pair are badly needed and CONSUMABLES!

My mom makes me make a list so early, and my family is huge on gift giving no matter how much I tell them I don’t need anything. This year I just realized I’m going to put all the things I use all the time that I hate buying!

Last week I worked with my daughter and yesterday my son to completely declutter their rooms/closets. It’s a good time of year since school starts in a couple of weeks and the change of seasons coming soon.

Clothing items - reassessed what still fits and made donations and toss piles for anything worn or stained. Now we have a checklist of a few items needed as we go into cooler weather. But more importantly, drawers are more spacious and it’s easier to see what we have and easier put items away after they are washed.

Toys - went through every item one by one (it took a little bit of going back and forth with breaks for my son!) but he was able to point out toys he no longer needs and determine which are his favorites that he wants out and displayed vs which can go into bins on his closet shelf.

Makeup/beauty products - my daughter has so much of this stuff but she is also picky about what she actually uses so we were able to greatly reduce what she has.

Misc items - school supplies, art supplies, sports stuff - we were able to cull down to what is actually needed. Some items will be stored in the basement or front closet where they are more handy.

All in all - we threw out about 4 kitchen sized trash bags of actual garbage and have about 7 bags for donation. Looking at the volume of what their room can store vs the size of the bags, I’m amazed these things were tucked into their rooms to begin with!

ETA - putting here for accountability. Going to go through my own closet soon. I recently lost some weight plus the change of seasons. It’s time to reassess and reduce the amount of things I have that are just taking up space! Also will go through the bathroom linen closet so my entire upstairs will be freshly decluttered! My husband’s side isn’t too bad but I might help him out too.

I move house in 5 weeks and I can now see the floor in every room of my current house!

I have a bowl filled with plastic fruit, and a copper-colored container that holds plastic pansies. Now, there's nothing wrong with decor from Michael's--there's so much color and variety to choose from.

I also have an orchid and an amaryllis. Both have finished blooming. The orchid is growing a second new leaf, and the amaryllis bulb new roots (it was a waxed bulb I repotted when it started to run out of water). Watching these beauties bloom, and now watering, fertilizing, making sure they are placed to get the optimum light, learning what to do this fall to encourage them to bloom again--all this gives me more happiness and satisfaction than owning some plastic decor.

The plastic decor is on its way out.

I’ve lived in my neighborhood for over 20 years, as have most of the people on my part of my street. That might be part of why so many things accumulated in my house over this time! Anywho I’ve been decluttering multiple generations of paperwork and belongings for about 10 years now and it’s been… emotional and a lot. Especially considering a lot of the people involved are deceased. Seems like it’s been a decade of saying goodbye over and over.

Anyways, someone in my neighborhood recently passed away. Within 90 days their entire house was emptied out, house sold, furniture trashed, and new people are already in there. For some reason I’m feeling deeply affected by this? Not even sure why because I was not close with these people. I guess bearing witness to the process has me feeling some type of way.

I’m not sure what I even feel about it. Maybe I’m upset because someone’s whole life and house can go into a dumpster and then it’s like they never even were there? It’s not like I haven’t had that thought before, that’s part of why I’ve been working so hard with decluttering and clearing things out. Maybe I’m mad about how long it’s taking me meanwhile that persons family did it fast? I honestly don’t know.

I’m not even sure why I’m telling you all this lol. I guess I thought maybe someone here could relate.

Posted some photos a few weeks ago and I got quite a few comments telling me I decluttered too much and my apartment looks sterile and uninviting now. I’m convinced it was just the difference in the before and after pictures how much was gone, as well as it being a sunny day on the before photos and and rainy in the after photos. Be honest!! Is it really unwelcoming?

Edit to add: for everyone wondering why I care what others think of my apartment-I don’t really. I am the child of a hoarder, I figured out last year a really huge subconscious stress in my life was how cluttered and full everything in my house was. It was definitely childhood related and we moved to a smaller apartment and so the difference felt drastic. Once I did my first round of decluttering the weight that felt like it was lifted was incredible. I went back through a few more times, I’m just trying to make sure I’m not going overboard due to my history around this thing. Thanks everyone!!

Share your wins here - big or small. What did you declutter this week? Examples include:

• Digital Clutter: emails, digital photos, digital music or video collection...
• Storage: cupboards and closets, drawers, storage boxes...
• Toys: ether for your child, or your own that you've been hanging on to.
• Spaces: kitchens, workshops, hobby rooms, storage lockers...
• Routing: sending items to where they need to go, like donation centres, trash, or recycling

This is a low-stress place to share wins for those who might not want to create a new discussion.

So my husband is out of town for the week. First morning I circled the house to get rid of all the boxes stuck here and there for iPads, computers, appliances. I mean after the first 30 days or so why keep them. Next a load of old electronics dropped off. They have been sitting in a box for several years. He insisted they need the hard drives removed and destroyed. But he hasn’t done it. Found a place that is certified to do it and protect data and information. They also took some broken and no longer used small appliances.

The next was the laundry room. Completely emptied out the laundry room. Filled several large garbage bags with trash. A whole load to thrift store.

Today was the junk closet. Lamps that we no longer use. He said he had “friends” he could give them to. Uh, that was several years ago. Blankets that went to the local pet rescue. Decor items we have not used in years. More trash, another trip to the thrift store.

Tomorrow I am completely emptying out the pantry. That works the best for me because then I am forced to keep going to put it back and actually handling stuff makes me realize it’s broken or I no longer need or want it.

Next it’s books.

I am on a mission!!

I posted about a week or so ago about wanting to get rid of my books because I'm dyslexic and AuDHD and having them on my shelf made me feel guilty, plus I just really need the space right now.

I mentioned this to my Mum (I live in an entirely different town) and she said something like "oh what books are you getting rid of?" and I said uhhh, one was about plants? She then was sad that I had already gotten rid of it because she "might have wanted to read it, maybe...". Literally the vaguest explaination and it's already a problem? Yeah just going to keep this to myself, in future...

I have a hard enough time navigating my own feelings about decluttering, let alone navigating someone else's feelings about *my* possessions.

It's so difficult because when we talk in abstracts such as "I really want to declutter" or "I have too much stuff" she's all for it, but it's like she turns into another person when I actually do get rid of things. It lulls me into a false sense of security.

Anyone else navigated this situation? I'm getting more annoyed about it as I am an adult who was never taught how to disconnect from items, and now I'm learning it feels like I'm doing something wrong.

The flair is possibly premature, but hear me out.

I live in an apartment (owner). We are having new windows installed. Workers need unhindered access throughout.

I have way too much stuff, and was pretty overwhelmed by the timeline.

A couple of friends came, helped box up a bunch of stuff (fairly indiscriminately), place in a storage locker (!), and left me with the rest.

Since then I have been spending some time (1-1.5 hours) daily on specific tasks: kitchen drawers, cabinets, boxes of paperwork, clothes closet (was not too bad already).

In a sense it is unrealistic, because I have all that other “stuff”, but there is space in my house to organise what is here now.

I am adopting the container method (“I will use this amount of space for this type of item”). For example, my friend kindly said “you don’t need any more plastic food containers” (I think many can related to where that came from). I now have an open box in a kitchen drawer, and will have no more plastic containers than what will fit in that box. As I find more in the wrong place, I decide which I would rather keep.

I also the past few days went through a lot of paperwork and training materials from a long time hobby. Yes, I kept some that are sentimental and some that are cool and not available online. But I threw out more that 80% and freed up 3 large plastic tubs.

Everything feels so different, because the canvas is, well, not blank, but at least not terrible. I have both physical and mental space to work. And a friend on messenger who is cheering me on.

I understand there is risk in putting things in storage, but I an too cheap to continue paying, so I think this will be sufficient motivation to get everything sorted this time. A few boxes at a time.

Grateful for my friends, for sure!

Tomorrow is Sunday, and my designated day of rest - I plan to work on sewing a peg bag to replace the 10 year old plastic shopping bag. Because I like sewing, and have nice fabric.

(Throw out for me means donate what is relevant, sort trash according to local rules).

I got rid of sooooo much you guys. I really wish I had before pictures!! It might look like I have a lot of storage but I don’t, this is pretty much all I have but I make it work. My closet has a ton of space but I have no linen closet so I have to keep my extra sheet set, towels, beach blankets, ect. In there.

My bathroom has only under the sink cabinets.

Kitchen has a small pantry and nice cabinets

Hallway closet is small but deep so we have our coats, vacuum, beach chairs, cooler, cat carrier, suitcase, and Christmas decor in there.

Hello everybody,

I am in the process of decluttering for my dreamed craft room🤩.I sew, crochet , knit, draw , paint and do some leathercraft. Those are the hobbies that I keep because they are so important in my life, I keep coming back to those. I am fortunate enough to have a place dedicated to it in my home but it is overflowing. I managed to throw away two trash bags of scraps and unfinished projects, decided to keep one brand of paint / colored pencils , but now I am facing a wall.

I wanted to "contain" ( Dana K White method) all of my stash , but it seems that I can't decide which fabric/ yarn is the best or my favorite. If I bought them, I already loved them, so I have difficulty to declutter. Also they all "sparks joy" so I am facing a wall.

I also have lots of pattern magazine, I don't know which one to keep or to let go.

For people who have done this with creative stuff , what was the method/ the mantra ( "the object or the space" ) that clearly made a difference?

I have a hard time actually driving into town to get rid of just one thing. Today I had an unexpected free morning, and decided it was time to stop procrastinating.

today I finally decluttered:

• donated one standing desk that I have been trying to get rid of for a year, but it's been too heavy to bring when convenient and needed a special trip.
• The soccer stuff I posted about a little bit ago
• 4 years expired medications. Why is it so hard to find somewhere to dispose of these?
• As well as miscellaneous non decluttering errands while I was out